It Depends On What The Meaning Of "Fixed" Is

Senator Barack Obama said Thursday the United States cannot sustain a long-term military presence in Iraq, but added that he would be open to “refine my policies” about a timeline for withdrawing troops after meeting with American military commanders during a trip to Iraq later this month. ~The Caucus

The undesirable influence of Lippert seems to be growing ever greater. Meanwhile, the commanders “on the ground” (as opposed to where?) have made their predictable reappearance in Obama’s remarks:

And when I go to Iraq and have a chance to talk to some of the commanders on the ground, I’m sure I’ll have more information and will continue to refine my policies.

This is may not [be] a flip-flop by the technical definition of the term, but it certainly is a substantial walk back on perhaps the defining issue of the election that will draw fire from both the right and the left.

Obama does a lot of backward walking these days, and so it’s not surprising that he keeps tripping all over his own promises. Of course, there are two ways to look at this latest news: either Obama’s original antiwar stance was never very strong and any “refinements” he makes now are just small modifications to an originally weak position, or he has started yielding to the conventional wisdom that his position on Iraq has to change because of the “success” of the “surge” (whose success, as I have said before, might better described as failure). This either confirms that he was never much of an antiwar leader, or it means that he will align himself more and more with the Washington consensus the closer he comes to being elected.

Actually, there are three ways to look at this: there are these two interpretations, and the one that most Obama supporters will probably choose. According to the third view, this is proof that Obama is a pragmatist and open to evidence rather than someone who runs away from fights, avoids risk and eschews leadership. Then again, it is these latter qualities that usually give pragmatists such a bad name.

P.S. On Obama’s own campaign site, this is how they describe the relevant part of his position:

Obama will immediately begin to remove our troops from Iraq. He will remove one to two combat brigades each month, and have all of our combat brigades out of Iraq within 16 months.

Though it was never a full withdrawal position, at least it was something. It would appear that this is no longer the case.

One way to figure out what’s going on is to look at the talking points the Obama campaign has sent to surrogates about Iraq. As of 7/3, those TPs say that Obama will “immediately” begin to withdraw combat troops. The TPs don’t say anything about consulting with generals or facts on the ground.

I don”t think that’s fair: there’s a distinction between cynical and pragmatic.

That’s true. “Pragmatic” is what a politician’s supporters call one of his cynical moves. The distinction is clear. There is another. Cynicism at least presupposes that all firm commitments and ideals are empty and meaningless. Pragmatism takes for granted that there are principled positions that the pragmatists refuse to adopt.

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13 Responses to It Depends On What The Meaning Of "Fixed" Is

The more I see of Obama and his ability to finesse these issues, the more I am impressed with the sheer brazen audacity of his campaign. Democrats are in the exact same position in 2008 that they were in 1992, desperate for victory, they will be willing to look over a great many transgressions and flip flops, and Obama knows it.
How positively…Clintonian.

Exactly. I am proud to say that I made that exact comparison in a comments thread a couple of months ago, and indeed did so a day before Ezra Klein wrote a post worrying about precisely those potential parallels. Hmm …

Adam01 goes a bit further than I would, but I think the thrust is basically correct. At least to me, the Obama campaign appears to have decided that the Democrats’ edge in voter registration, voter ID, and the corresponding trough in GOP voter enthusiasm for this election represent crushing advantages, and that the key now is — to paraphrase “The Price is Right” — to get as close to McCain as they can without going over. McCain’s for the FISA deal? So (mumblewithreservationsmumble) is Obama? McCain won’t pull the troops out? Neither will Obama (mumblewithreservationsmumble).

The idea is to give McCain no way to draw any clear lines of differentiation, and let the theoretical “natural Democratic wave” simply wash him away. Will it work? Well, it hasn’t attracted this Paul supporter’s vote, but on another forum I commented on Obama’s flip-flop on FISA, only to by told by a Bush/Limbaugh/McCain Republican that said flip-flop was the first thing he liked about Obama, and that it demonstrated a growing awareness of world affairs! I’m going to bet he’ll feel the same way about the Iraq walkback.

Obama has been saying on the campaign trail for over a year that on the first day in office, he would call in the Joint Chiefs of Staff and ask them to change the mission in Iraq. He said that again today. Because he used the word “refine” at some point people seem to be flipping out, but surely any President save one utterly “fixed” in his views and unable to face facts would evolve his views on a situation as complex as Iraq, don’t you think?

Charles Krauthammer and the McCain campaign, both of whom are inalterably committed to war in both Iraq and Afghanistan, are trying to stampede the credulous into thinking that a change in our policy on Iraq would be dangerous. The real danger is that we make no change, and continue our occupation of Iraq indefinitely.

He is articulating a different position now than the one he has maintained in the past, and he is setting standards that ensure that withdrawal of combat forces will be delayed for a very long time. This is not a small thing.

Obama’s embrace of the anti-war position was always opportunistic. It was an outgrowth of his early 1980s view that we should not be spending money on bombs and aircraft carriers while schools have bake sales and black people don’t have jobs. His passions, beyond his own ambition, are tribal and domestic. So is it any surprise that he is malleable on this for reasons of expediency. He doesn’t care about foreign policy. Most black politicians in the US do not and neither does their constituency. He wants that money at home, though I imagine he would support Darfur type operations because it’s humanitarian and an extension of his manifest tribalism.

The guy is a complete fraud. It’s funny so many anti-war Democrats and Paleoconservatives have fallen for him, as they have.

“In other words, the plan is to imitate the opposing party on its worst policies in order to bring about change. That would be clever, if it were credible.”

“Its worst policies” to guys like you and me. But to many others, these policies are very good things. There is, sadly, plenty of support out there for giving the government vast eavesdropping capabilities, and for staying in Iraq — especially now that the “the surge is working meme has propagated so successfully.

Obama is trying to win the election. This means broadening his support outside of his Democratic primary voters and pre-empting charges from the Republicans that he’d be reckless in Iraq (as if they should be talking, but that’s another story). Hence the caveats about what he’d do in Iraq. Hence the TV ads that I’m being bombarded with (I’m in Pennsylvania) that talk about how Obama is a regular guy with heartland values who believes in hard work, dislikes welfare, likes tax cuts for the working class, and loves America. For example, I saw this last night:

If this sort of positioning makes you uncomfortable, well that’s politics. If you think it’s Clintonian, remember that Bill Clinton won two presidential elections. If you think that this positioning necessarily means a big change in what Obama would actually do if he is elected, think again. He’s left himself plenty of wiggle room. If you’re shocked, shocked, to find out that Obama is actually a politician instead of Chauncey Gardiner, I have some surprising news about the Tooth Fairy as well. And if you’re an Obama supporter and would rather he lose than win by engaging in this sort of politics, keep that thought in mind next year as you read about President McCain’s foreign policy and Supreme Court appointments.

Do Obama’s political maneuverings contradict his “no politics as usual” talk? To some extent, yes. To the extent that he’s adopting personal attacks like the “The Democrats want the terrorists win” talk that comes from certain quarters, no. Up to a point, which hasn’t been crossed yet, I’ll take what I can get. Of more concern, at least to someone who supports him, is whether this stuff helps Obama. I can see arguments either way, but the big question right now for him is how to win larger, less classicly liberal, battleground states like Pennsylvania. Hence TV ads like the one linked to above.

And, lest we forget, the person he’s running against has basically said whatever he thinks his audience wants to hear, in order to win over the various factions of the Republican party.

I understand that politics requires hedging and maneuvering. I am so sick of this attitude from his defenders that everyone who objects to his unscrupulous opportunism is a naive idealist. I have never expected anything else from Obama, and I have been insistent for months that antiwar conservatives who believe Obama’s promises are likely to be disappointed. What would shock me is if Obama ever took a stand that required real political risk.